New Young Pony Club – The Optimist

New Young Pony Club - The Optimist

I remember seeing New Young Pony Club whilst I was at university a few years ago when they were touring with the NME on the same bill as CSS and the Klaxons.  I was swept up on the nu-rave bandwagon and really liked their original, edgy sound. But then they sort of disappeared.

With only a hazy memory of their previous work (mainly ‘Ice Cream’), I was expecting more of the same; plinky-plonky ’80s electro, nu-rave pop – and their new album The Optimist delivers, but on a larger scale. … Continue Reading

Kubla Khan – London Indigo2

Kubla Khan

February 19th 2010

Kubla Khan have transformed over the last few months.  Their last London gig, at 229 Great Portland in November, showcased a good band but lacked a decent frontman.  That’s not to say singer Matt Heanes was bad – far from it, in fact.  He just lacked that showmanship quality that a nine-piece band needs.

Fast forward to February, then, and how things have changed. Matt was visibly more relaxed, and interacted much better with the audience. Wandering about the stage and shouting “How you doing?… I said how you doing?!” it was evident his confidence has grown since the last time they were in London, and rightly so.

Heanes has a great voice, and Kubla Khan are a very tight band musically. Funk should be something you can move to, and the band as a whole seemed to be juxtaposed between chilled out and high on adrenalin. ‘Karma Comes Around’ is a catchy song which I still find myself humming to a week after the gig, and it was good to see the band having fun on stage whilst they played; the horn section were rocking out when they weren’t playing, laughing and joking with each other.

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Daisy Dares You and The Plasticines – London Borderline

The Plasticines

February 8th 2009

Daisy Dares You walked on to the stage, more or less unnoticed.  All of a sudden she launched into the first track, her long blonde hair flailing around as she shook her head manically. 

The 16 year old doesn’t look particularly like a rock chick; indeed her debut single ‘Number One Enemy’ features Chipmunk – hardly known for his rock tendencies – but she was soon brandishing a guitar and rocking out like the best of them.  She looked slightly out of place amongst her band mates (who are all quite a bit older than her) but held her own throughout the show, struggling only to fully engage the audience, who were an older than average crowd lacking the teenybopper energy you’d expect at a gig like this.

Daisy reminded me of the UK’s answer to Ashley Simpson, or perhaps our very own Pixie Lott gone wrong.  Toward the end of the set, she broke into a punk-pop version of the Oliver! song ‘Who Will Buy?’  I couldn’t decide if it was sheer genius or completely awful, particularly as the middle section turned into a head banging competition between her and her guitarist.  Perhaps if I were 10 years younger, I might have appreciated her style a bit more, but, whilst I can’t fault her enthusiasm and energy on stage, felt she had a lot to learn about actual stage presence.   

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Mike Doughty – London Relentless Garage

Mike Doughty

February 2nd 2010

“I want to be on you”.  Ron Burgundy’s “immortal words” are those chosen by Mike Doughty to sell himself to the British public.

Doughty, formerly of alt-rock band Soul Coughing, is pretty popular in the States, but relatively unknown here.  My question referred to selling himself to us in the style of a dating ad.  His witty answer, I come to realise, is standard.

The American singer-songwriter is a fairly open book, regularly tweeting (find him @mikedoughtyyeah) and blogging on his website, where he comments honestly on his day to day activities and thoughts on the happenings in the world; two recent tweets include “Lousy night. Crowd couldn’t have cared less” and “Salinger gone – perhaps we’ll at last hear his Rock Opera”.  Is it important for him to keep in touch with fans? “I think it ends up being important, but the reason I do it is just my general obsession with killing time online” he says. “I think my crowd feels pretty close to me because of the access I give to myself, but I don’t think it’s necessarily vital to being a musician these days”.

This openness has extended to a book about his previous life as a drug addict, which he’s in the process of writing.  Mike claims “writing prose is a lot more time consuming than song writing” and that “linear thinking”  is not his strength.  He’s currently struggling to write about his time with Soul Coughing, describing it as “pretty shitty”.
… Continue Reading

The Temper Trap – London KOKO

The Temper Trap

December 21st, 2009

After bad weather, delayed trains, and some difficulty persuading the doorman I was there to review the gig, I almost left Koko defeated, fed up and ready to trudge through the snow back home.

Luckily, a nice man let me have his plus one, which was good news, because I really wanted to find out if The Temper Trap lived up to the hype they attracted after featuring on (500) Days of Summer.

For those who have missed The Temper Trap before now, ‘Sweet Disposition’ was played on the trailer for the film; front man Dougy’s ethereal falsetto floating over driving percussion and guitar work – the perfect match to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s ever hopeful character looking for ‘The One’.
… Continue Reading

Kubla Khan – London 229

229

December 11th 2009

I always find 229 quite a strange venue; it has the potential to be great, but there are never any people there.  Still, there was a reasonable crowd watching support band The Brays. I got there just in time to see the Peterborough band do a song about Russell Brand called ‘My Libertine’ and finish up with ‘Golden Age.’ The latter sounded a bit like Elastica’s ‘Wake Up’ which was a bit of a throw back, but I had a fondness for Elastica back in the day, and overall I rather liked the Bray’s electro rock sound.

Kubla Khan got a lot of love from The Brays, and played a great set.  The funk rock band filled the stage – the nine-piece comprising singer Matt Heanes, a rhythm section and four-strong horn section.  I had quite high expectations for the live show, having heard some of their tracks recently.  The bassist having lights up the bass neck got them off on the right foot – I can’t help that I’m attracted to shiny things – and some great solos came in the way of sax and guitar.

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2003: the BRITs, The Postal Service and ‘Crazy In Love’

Beyonce - Crazy In Love

2003.  What a year.  I was 18, had moved to London and was working at a record label.  Living the dream.  First thoughts on the music of 2003 are namely Blue and Atomic Kitten, because they were the biggest bands I worked with at the time.  We were also preparing VS for their brief brush with fame – I only mention them because Marvin is now one quarter of JLS. … Continue Reading

Mumford and Sons – Winter Winds

Mumford and Sons

Mumford and Sons played a gig in New York a few months ago, at the legendary Mercury Lounge, as a warm up to their SXSW performances.  Foolishly, I didn’t go, despite all the hype I’d heard about them.

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Uffie – Pop The Glock

Uffie - Pop The Glock

Initial thoughts on this record: rubbish.  Uffie is clearly trying to be ’80s Madonna/Lady Gaga.

After a few more goes at it though, ‘Pop The Glock’ grows on you.  Which is annoying.  After the first 20 seconds of the song, I really wanted to hate this.

The single itself is quite bland; Uffie basically just (sort of) raps over an electro/crunk drum beat – more annoyingly she uses one of those irritating voice things that Imogen Heap uses on all of her records (don’t get me wrong, I quite like Imogen Heap, but after listening to this track continuously for about ten minutes it starts to grate…)

Still, after a bit of research, I found out that Uffie was once the star of MySpace and everyone thought she was the next big thing.  Listening to some of her other tracks from her MySpace, I can kind of see what the attraction is.  They’re certainly more interesting than this single.  But, I’m here to review this single, so that’s what I’ll do… … Continue Reading

Jay-Z – Blueprint 3

Jay-Z

The hype surrounding this album is phenomenal. With Jay-Z morphing into a super-human pin-up of hip-hop with every record sale and dollar-billed endorsement, I was anxious to see how Blueprint 3 would shape up.

… Continue Reading